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The Motion Picture Association of America's film-rating system is used in the U.S and its territories to rate a film's thematic and content suitability for certain audiences. It is one of various motion picture rating systems used to help patrons decide what movies are appropriate for children, for adolescents, and for adults.

In the U.S., the MPAA's rating system is the most recognized classification system for determining potentially offensive content, but usually is not used outside the film industry, because the MPAA has trademarked each rating. It's system is criticised for the secrecy of its decisions,^[1] and for its stricter censorship of sexual content versus violent content.

Contents 1 Ratings 2 History 2.1 Origins 2.2 Original ratings 2.3 The M rating is replaced 2.4 Age problems with the R and X ratings 2.5 The GP rating is replaced 2.6 The addition of the PG-13 rating 2.7 NC-17 replaces X 2.8 "Hard R" 3 Trailers 4 Rating process 5 Effects of ratings 6 Criticism of the MPAA Rating system 7 Stephen Farber's internal critique 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

The current MPAA movie ratings are:

Rating Symbol	Text
	G - General Audiences All ages admitted
	PG - Parental guidance suggested Some material might be unsuitable for children
	PG-13 - Parents strongly cautioned Some material might be inappropriate for children under 13 years of age.
	R - Restricted Viewers younger than 17 require accompaniment of a parent or adult guardian.
	NC-17 - Children under 17 are not Admitted.

If a film is not submitted for rating, the label NR (Not Rated) is used; however, "NR" is not an official MPAA classification. Films as yet unrated by the MPAA, but that are expected to be submitted for rating, are often advertised with the notice "This Film is Not Yet Rated" or, less frequently, "Rating Pending."

Culturally, the U.S. came late to rating its movies, as most all other countries already had been rating their cinema for decades. The MPAA's film-ratings were instituted on 1 November 1968, in response to religiously-motivated complaints about the sexual, violent, and profanity content of American cinema, after the MPAA's 1966 revision of the Production Code of America. The revision created the "M" rating, "SMA" (Suggested for Mature Audiences) advisory, identifying violent movies and movies with mature themes, along with the MPAA Code seal, the "M" rating proved undescriptive, and its enforcement lax; (see Green Sheet about its precursor ratings system).

The cultural erosion of the film production code had several effects: it allowed violently artistic films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), and an increase in low-budget exploitation films that were more sexually and violently explicit. In 1966, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? used the phrase "hump the hostess". In 1967, two movies — Ulysses and I'll Never Forget What's'isname — used the word fuck in their stories. This precipitated public demand for the reintroduction of self-censorship. After meeting with government, the MPAA and the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) agreed to a uniform ratings system for every film produced by its members that, theoretically, would be enforced by exhibitors.

Non-MPAA member film producers went unaffected; the ratings system was legally unenforceable because of the free speech guarantee, inherent to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, as interpreted regarding the sexual, violent, and profanity content in communications media dating from the 1952 Joseph Burstyn, Inc v. Wilson decision, yet, two important 1968 Supreme Court cases, Ginsberg v. New York^[2] and Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. Dallas^[3], lead to the MPAA's creation of their movie rating system.

The original movie ratings (used 1968–1970) were:

• Rated G: General Audiences. All ages admitted.
• Rated M: Suggested for Mature Audiences. Parental discretion advised.
• Rated R: Restricted. Persons 16 and under are not admitted unless accompanied by parent or adult guardian.
• Rated X: Persons 17 and under not admitted.

This content classification system originally was to have three ratings, ending with the Restricted rating (like the system then used in most of Canada), however, business pressure from cinema owners forced the MPAA's creation of an exclusively adult "X" film rating to protect them from local church-instigated complaints and lawsuits. Initially, the "X" rating was not an MPAA trademark: any producer not submitting a movie for MPAA rating could self-apply the "X" rating (or any other symbol or description that was not an MPPA trademark).

Parents were confused whether or not M-rated films had more mature content than R-rated films. This was especially true in the pre-rating years 1965–1968 when the earlier, ambiguous "Suggested for Mature Audiences" advisory allowed explicit violence and adult subjects in a movie. Their confusion led to its replacement, in January 1970,^[4] by the GP rating:

• Rated GP: All Ages Admitted/Parental Guidance Suggested

In the GP-rating, the "G" meant the film was not age-restricted (like the G rating, "All Ages Admitted"), while the "P" told audiences that, despite no age restriction, parental discretion was expected, however, many misunderstood GP-rated as an abbreviation for "General Patronage". The change from "M" to "GP" took effect on March 1, 1970;^[5] again, "GP" confusion caused its revision to the "PG" rating, an abbreviation for Parental Guidance.

Simultaneously, in 1970, as the M rating changed to GP, the ages of viewers admitted to R- and X-rated movies was raised from 16 to 17,^[4][5] however, the age on the X rating varied per the jurisdiction, until the MPAA officially changed it to the NC-17 rating. Some newspaper adverts clearly altered ages for R- and X-rated films to 18 years of age instead of 17.

By 1972, problems with the GP rating emerged; parents perceived it as too permissive, unindicative of a film's true content. In 1971, the MPAA had experimented with including a content advisory warning to GP-rated movies, the wording varied, but typically read: Contains material not generally suitable for pre-teenagers; thus, it was an early form of the PG-13 rating; the warning was indicated with an asterisk next to the GP letters. This short-lived rating can be called GP*, however, the number of such films quickly outnumbered GP films (sans the warning) and the MPAA, in February 1972 (standardising rating symbols used in movie advertising), announced that both the GP and the GP* ratings would be replaced with the new PG rating; ^[6] it was used through the 1970s.

Originally, the rating, and its content advisory warning, read:

• Rated PG: Parental Guidance Suggested — Some material may not be suitable for pre-teenagers.

Today, the rating, and its warning, read:

• Rated PG: Parental Guidance Suggested — Some material may not be suitable for children.

By then, the rating box contained the rating in boldface, the MPAA logo, and the content advisory warning. From the adoption of the system through the mid-1970s, mildly adult mainstream cinema — Airport, Planet of the Apes, The Green Berets, The Odd Couple, Tora! Tora! Tora!, and 2001: A Space Odyssey — commonly were released with G ratings, but, by 1978 (given substitution of "children" in place of "pre-teenagers" in the PG rating), the G rating became associated solely with infantile films, while the PG rating became the norm for "family" films. Most G-rated films from the system's early years are today perceived as having PG and PG-13 content, hence, G-rated movies from the 1960s, such as Romeo and Juliet (1968) were re-rated PG.

In retrospect, some ratings are culturally odd, though it must be remembered that the rating standards then were more liberal; violence, sexually suggestive speech and action, naked men, and mild cursing were acceptable in the lower ratings, while sexual intercourse (either implicit or explicit) and naked women were not! A movie's rating depended on the personal mores and opinion of the individual censors. For example, the G-rated Battle of Britain (1967) had mild British cursing and explicit killings of RAF and Luftwaffe aircrew. True Grit was G-rated after being edited-down in tone; however, it still contained American cursing and strong cowboy violence. Larry Cohen's cult horror film It's Alive (1974), about a killer mutant infant, re-released in 1977, was rated PG despite being bloody per the socio-cultural mores of its time. Its two sequels, It Lives Again (1978) and It's Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987) (released direct-to-video), were rated R, nevertheless, Finland banned all three films per its film rating system.

Moreover, The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) was rated R instead of M (despite its violence being like that of a contemporary James Bond film of the 1960s), because of a chess-game-as-sexual-foreplay between the protagonist and antagonist. In 1975, the phrase May Be Too Intense For Younger Children was the rather unusually-worded PG rating featured in the television adverts for Jaws (1975).

In the late 1970s, the PG ratings were reworded, the word pre-teenagers replaced with children. An analysis of the proportion of films rated G and PG at that time (corresponding with a cultural shift to stricter rating standards) shows that fewer G ratings were issued, while more family films were rated PG with the less restrictive "children" label. The MPAA had no standardised application system in the late 1970s, but, by the early 1980s, the phrase "pre-teenagers" was almost unused, and, in 1984, the PG-13 rating (see below) was established, restoring the clear distinction (see GP and GP* above) between films of lighter and heavier content.

By the end of the 1970s, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) ended mainstream (heavily-marketed, live-action) big studio films rated G (though the director's cut is PG, for strong science fiction violence and mild cursing; the original G rating is questionable, as it features on-screen killings). Since then, such movies would be released minimally rated PG. That transition was when live-action Disney movies, such as The Black Hole, The Watcher in the Woods, and The Devil and Max Devlin routinely were rated PG.

Before the July 1, 1984, there was a minor trend of cinema straddling the PG and R ratings (per MPAA records of appeals to its decisions in the early 1980s), suggesting a needed middle ground. In summer of 1982, Poltergeist (1982) was re-rated PG on appeal, although originally rated R for strong supernatural violence and marijuana-smoking parents. Disney's PG-rated Dragonslayer (1982) alarmed parents with explicit fantasy violence and blood-letting.

Because of such successful appeals, based upon artistic intent, many mild, mainstream movies were rated PG instead of R because of some thematically necessary strong cursing, e.g. Tootsie, Terms of Endearment, Sixteen Candles, and Footloose. These censorchip reversals were consequence, in large measure, of the 1970s precedent established by All the President's Men. ^[7] Had these movies been released after 1984, they likely would have been rated PG-13 because of their content.

In 1984, explicit violence in the PG-rated films Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins were the straws that broke the parents' backs. Their complaints led Hollywood businessman Steven Spielberg to suggest a new rating, PG-14, to MPAA president Jack Valenti. Instead, on conferring with cinema owners, Mr Valenti and the MPAA on July 1, 1984, introduced the PG-13 rating, allowing in children younger than 13 years of age without a parent or an adult guardian, but warning parents about potentially shocking violence, cursing, and mature subject matter; though weaker than an R rating, PG-13 is the strongest, unrestricted rating. The first, widely-distributed PG-13 movie was Red Dawn (1984), a Cold War fantasy about a Communist invasion of the U.S.A., although the mainstream character drama, The Flamingo Kid, was the the first film so rated.

It took a year for the PG-13 logotype to metamorphose to its current form. From 1984 to 1986, the initial rating, instead of using boldface text and a content advisory warning, bore the wording:

• Rated PG-13: Parents are strongly cautioned to give special guidance for attendance of children under 13.

Today, it reads:

• Rated PG-13: PARENTS STRONGLY CAUTIONED — Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

With the PG rating still being used unchanged, it was remained unclear to some parents, at first, whether or not PG and PG-13 films were intended for adults. Until 1990, some of the same content that prompted the creation of the PG-13 rating was in some PG films. For example Big, Spies Like Us, and Nothing in Common were three late-1980s PG releases containing PG-13-level innuendo; the dialogue of two contained the word fuck .

The socially and culturally conservative ratings board quickly reacted to protesting parents, and PG-13 films outnumbered PG films; content standards were narrowed for PG classification. At decade's turn, PG-13 rating standards also were narrowed, at least for violence, as the censors became more likely to issue R ratings to violent films showing explicit blood-letting and the killing of policemen. Except for a brief reversal in 1994, the number of PG-13 films outnumbered the PG films since, and the proportion of R-rated films (beginning with the boom of privately-viewed home video in the late 1980s) has generally increased at the expense of unrestricted films. Only within the last two years has there been an indication that the proportion of restricted films has slightly decreased as a cultural trend.

In the rating system's early years, X-rated movies, such as Midnight Cowboy (1969), A Clockwork Orange (1971), and Last Tango in Paris (1973), could earn Oscar nominations and win awards yet film makers continue disputing the true effects of an X rating.

That the MPAA rated those mainstream movies X as if they were pornography, only underscored the contradictions between commerce and Art. Although Deep Throat (1972), Behind the Green Door, and The Devil in Miss Jones were rated X, the rating never was either an official rating or trademark of the MPAA. Pornographers often self-applied it for business reasons, to the degree that it became acceptable in their advertising, and then the eponym for pornography in American mainstream culture; not the rating's original intent. Ironically, its over-use led pornographers to rate their films XXX to increase the success of their marketing efforts. [1]

This concern led many newspapers and television stations to refuse X-rated movie adverts; some cinema owners forbade exhibition such movies. Such policies led the distributors' compromise with George Romero about his classic zombie horror film Dawn of the Dead (1978): participating NATO cinema owners would enforce the audience restriction rating, but the letter X would not appear in advertising, but, instead, the content warning advisory message: There is no explicit sex in this picture; however, there are scenes of violence, which may be considered shocking. No one 17 and under will be admitted would be displayed.

The MPAA stresses the voluntary nature of their film rating system, denying that it could inhibit a film's commercial distribution and so deny the businessman-film maker the right to earning a profit and make a living. Horror films, such as the sequel Day of the Dead (1985) and Re-Animator (1985) were so marketed. Some, such as the horror parody Evil Dead 2 did earn an adult rating, while others, such as Guardian of Hell and Zombie, used such violent content warnings along with their R ratings (sometimes deliberately surrendered) as profitable marketing ploys.

In 1989, two critically-acclaimed mainstream art films, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989) and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer were released featuring very strong sexual and violent content. Neither was approved for an R rating, hence had limited commercial distribution and so suffered commercially as unrated films. At around that time, the MPAA revised its rating system. Again, in answer to such dilemmas between Art and commerce, director David Lynch (writer and director of the thematically explicit and controversial art film, Blue Velvet (1986), suggested establishing an RR rating for such mainstream adult drama films.

On 27 September 1990, the MPAA introduced the rating NC-17 "No Children Under 17 Admitted" as its official, standardised rating allowing the commercial distribution of adult-oriented cinema bearing the MPAA seal. Pornographers have do not pay the MPAA a fee to submit their films for rating, since pornography is either independently distributed to cinemas or directly to video distributors. Thus, parents could differentiate between MPAA-rated adult mainstream cinema and pornography. At last, leaving the definition of "obscene" to the viewer's private thoughts.

Despite producer and film maker claims, communications media that refused to advertise pornography and X-rated films, refused advertising NC-17 movies as equally unsuitable for family consumption through their venues. Ironically, transferring censorship authority to cinema landlords' decision s to permit or not the exhibition of such movies. Moreover, under the guise of protecting "family values", socially conservative and religious groups pressured video distribution businesses (e.g. Blockbuster Video and Hollywood Video), to not rent or sell NC-17 movies; nevertheless, business being business, the stores do rent and sell the movies, provided they are not explicitly labelled as such, i.e. are in a plain wrapper.

In 1996, the NC-17 rating age limit was subtly increased by one year, by rewording it from "No Children Under 17 Admitted" to "No One 17 And Under Admitted".

Starting with Henry & June (1990) few NC-17 movies have proved profitable, but, United Artists, boldly attempting to broaden public acceptance of such films, marketed the big budget drama Showgirls with clever, colourful television and print advertising. To date, it was the first and only widely distributed NC-17 movie, to 1,388 cinemas, simultaneously. It is a poorly-written film and so was critically savaged and earned little money for the studio, and, for a time, it established the NC-17 rating as commercially untenable; "box office poison" in journalese.

The makers of the critically-successful anti-drugs film, Requiem for a Dream (2000) released it unrated, rather than endanger any commercial success with an NC-17 rating. The MPAA had threatened that rating because of the thematically necessary orgy montage climax. Despite artistic intent, the MPAA rejected the film makers appeal for an R rating. Today, the NC-17 rating tends to cinema appealing to the better-educated art house patrons who do not interpret the rating as either a positive or a negative reflection upon a film's content.

Most NC-17 films are released in cinemas, either in an edited, R-rated, version or in its original version. For example, the studio Fox Searchlight Pictures released a censored R-rated American edition of the European movie The Dreamers (2003), and later released both the original, NC-17 "Director's Cut" and the censored American commercial version on the same dvd. Only the viewers can determine whether or not that was a marketing strategy to make more money, or if it is censorship. Ironically, American film studios release NC-17 movies abroad uncensored and artistically intact; hence why the subject of the MPAA's movie ratings system is controversial in the United States.

The most recent major-studio film rated NC-17 is Focus Features' Lust, Caution (2007), about an assassination conspiracy in Shanghai during World War II, on account of its eroticism not its violence; director Ang Lee will not alter his film for distribution in the U.S.A. ^[8]

In March 2007, according to Variety, the MPAA chairman Dan Glickman has been trying to create a new rating called "Hard R" for films that contain too much violence, sexual content, and language; the suggested rating would also prohibit people under the age of 18 to watch the films, much like NC-17. The move is apparently motivated by parents, who have been pressuring Glickman and the MPAA to create a new rating to solve the problem because they think the R rating is too "wide-ranged". But the other problem is that if Hard R horror films were rated NC-17, they would lose a large amount of the teen audience.

Film studios have also pressured the MPAA to retire the NC-17 rating, because it can make their film worthless (e.g. Blockbuster refuses to carry DVDs rated NC-17 and many daily newspapers also refuse ads for NC-17 films).^[9][10]

The MPAA also rates movie trailers for theatrical exhibition. This system uses only two ratings, green band for previews that have been approved for all audiences, and red band for trailers that can only be shown before R and NC-17 films. The colors refer to the cards shown before trailers indicating whether they're intended for general or restricted audiences. As long as the trailer meets the MPAA guidelines for a green band rating, the rating for the film its advertising is irrelevant. In principle a green band trailer for an R-rated movie can play before children's films.

Although the MPAA does not publish an official list of all the exact words, actions, and exposed body parts used to determine a movie's rating, and one of the strongest criticism against the current rating system is the alleged inconsistency, some guidelines can be derived based on the MPAA's actual rating decisions:

• If a film uses "one of the harsher sexually derived words" (such as fuck) one to three times, it is routine today for the film to receive a PG-13 rating, provided that the word is used as an expletive and not with a sexual meaning (this was mentioned in Be Cool, when Chili Palmer complains about the movie industry. Fuck is said twice in that scene with a lot of other uses of language, giving the movie a PG-13). An example of a film that might suggest this criterion is Waiting for Guffman, which contains mostly PG-13 (some could even argue PG) content, yet is rated R (brief strong language) because a man auditioning for a role uses fuck while quoting Raging Bull (the only time it is spoken in the movie), in a sexual sense. Exceptions may be allowed, "by a special vote of the ratings board" where the board feels such an exception would better reflect the sensibilities of American parents. A couple of exceptions were noted: rare films such as Guilty by Suspicion were allowed as many as nine uses of the word; probably due to the precedent set in the 1970s by politically important films such as All the President's Men. All the President's Men was once rated R but then it was re-rated PG on appeal. It is a common misconception that if a movie uses fuck in a nonsexual context more than once, it will automatically receive an R rating. In reality, PG-13 movies are routinely allowed two or three uses, such as A Civil Action, As Good As It Gets, Rent, and 1408, which all use the word three times. But there are two extreme circumstances so far: Gunner Palace has 42 uses of the word, 2 used sexually ^[11] and The Hip Hop Project has 17 uses. Both films were rated PG-13 on appeal. Spaceballs uses "fuck" once (and "asshole" non-sexually several times) and is rated PG. The same goes for Beetlejuice, Crocodile Dundee and Big. (despite the first two being rated 15 by the BBFC).
• A reference to drugs, such as marijuana, usually gets a movie a PG-13 rating at a minimum. A well known example of an otherwise PG movie getting a PG-13 for a drug reference (momentary, along with brief language) is Whale Rider. The film contained only mild profanity but received a PG-13 because of a scene where drug paraphernalia was briefly visible. Critic Roger Ebert criticized the MPAA for the rating and called it "a wild overreaction." ^[12]
• A graphic or explicit scene of illegal drug use will earn a film at least a PG-13 rating and, especially in the case of hard drugs, even an R rating. In extremely rare cases, extremely graphic scenes of hard drug use will get a film an NC-17 (see Trainspotting, rated R for graphic heroin use and resulting depravity, strong language, sex, nudity and some violence).
• In May 2007, the MPAA announced that depictions of cigarette smoking would be considered in a film's rating.^[13]
• If a film contains strong sexual content, it usually receives at least an R rating. The film Lost in Translation had a scene in a strip club that had brief topless nudity and a song in the background that repeated the phrase "sucking on my titties". The scene was brief and the rest of the film had PG-13 level content, but the film still received an R rating. In fact, any film containing female nudity almost always receives an automatic R rating. In the case of I Capture the Castle, a shot of a topless woman got the film an R rating "for brief nudity." In every other country with a similar ratings system (such as the UK, Australia, and Canada), the film received an equivalent of G or PG. However, nine films including breast nudity were rated PG-13: Doc Hollywood has a scene where Julie Warner emerges from a lake nude, Back to School had a scene where Rodney Dangerfield accidentally walked in on a showering co-ed, Calendar Girls contained breast nudity on a calendar that was crucial to the plot, Titanic had momentary female nudity for artistic purposes, Disturbia had nude women on a TV screen, Super Size Me has an Art Deco-styled art piece with bare breasts in the background of one shot, and Across the Universe has a scene with a woman sleeping nude, with her breast visible. Bean has a poster of a woman that is not naked while one of her breasts is showing. However, we do not see her nipple. Beowulf has Grendel's mother appear fully naked while most of her body is covered with a gold liquid for most of the time. Her nipples or genitalia are not visible. Even some PG films have breast nudity in cultural contexts, such as Baraka and The Gods Must Be Crazy. Rarely, a sexual reference can get an otherwise "PG" film a PG-13, as is the case with The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, with a comedic sequence of a video featuring "Mr. Awesome". He said the word "poontang" in that scene and that gave TKOK a PG-13.
• If a film contains male rear nudity, it is more likely to be given a lower rating than if the nudity were female. Male nudity is generally regarded as ribald (i.e. mooning) or natural, whereas female nudity is generally regarded as sexual. However when it comes to exposed genitalia, the MPAA tends to be more lenient on female nudity. Films containing female full-frontal nudity usually earns an R rating while films featuring male full-frontal nudity face the possibility of receiving an NC-17 rating. But a few R-rated films have male frontal nudity such as Wild Things, Jackass: The Movie, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, and Superbad, although Superbad only contains drawings of male genitalia, not real nudity.
• Films that have legitimate historical or educational value are often granted leniency. Some have argued that the level of violence in Saving Private Ryan merited an NC-17, but that the film was given leniency because it was a historical war movie (It should be noted however that in both the UK and Ireland the film received a 15 cert). This argument also came up when The Passion of the Christ was released without cuts, with an R-rating.
• Violence which includes bloodshed will usually receive an R rating, while bloodless violence will be rated PG-13 (eg. Alien vs. Predator, the unrated version contains the same content as the PG-13 version in terms of violence however, every violent scene includes bloodshed; the same thing happened with Pearl Harbor in which explicit gunshot wounds and violence were added to get an R-rating on the DVD director's cut.) The anime Appleseed has PG-13 level violence. However, there was a scene of a mecha crushing a man's head, with resulting blood. The MPAA rated it R for "some violence". It should be noted that in the UK, it was rated 12A and in Spain it was rated 13. But the sequel, Appleseed Saga: Ex Machina, has been rated PG-13 for "action/violence and brief strong language". Likewise Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country contained a scene where a number of Klingons were massacred in a zero gravity environment with copious bloodshed. Despite this bloodshed, the Klingon blood was pink, and thus the film was given a PG rating.

Ratings criteria are intended to reflect changing norms and compromises between the diverse needs and rights of various interests in a large and complex modern society. Inevitably, the private views of the Ratings Board members will affect what is deemed acceptable for children to watch, determined in part by the culture of the time. Therefore, an evaluation of ratings criteria must specify what year or approximate period of time is being referred to, when modeling the standards relevant to each film classification. For example, according to This Film Is Not Yet Rated, films depicting homosexual sex scenes have been treated much more harshly than those depicting similar heterosexual scenes.

Members of the MPAA's Classification and Rating Administration, which the MPAA claims consists of a demographically balanced panel of parents, view the movie, discuss it, and vote on the film's rating. In fact, many of the "children" of the "parent" members are adults. Further information about members is difficult to obtain, as they operate in secret. The only publicly known member is chair Joan Graves. If the movie's producer is unhappy with this rating, he/she can re-edit the film and resubmit it, or can appeal to an Appeals Board. Appeals generally involve a film which was rated R for which the producer is seeking to have the rating changed to PG-13, or a film rated NC-17 for which the producer is seeking to have the rating changed to R.

According to This Film Is Not Yet Rated, as of December 2005:^[14]

The MPAA Ratings Board members are:

• Joan Graves, Chair
• Anthony "Tony" Hey, Senior Rater, 61, divorced with 2 children aged 28 & 30
• Scott Young, Senior Rater, 51, married with 2 children aged 22 & 24
• Joann Yatabe, Senior Rater, 61, married with 2 children aged 22 & 25
• Matt Ioakimedes, 46, (has been a rater for 9 years), divorced with two children aged 17 & 20
• Barry Freeman, 45, married with two children in elementary school
• Arleen Bates, 44, married with two children aged 15 & 23
• Joan Worden, 56, married with two 18 year old twins
• Howard Fridkin, 47, divorced
• Kori Jones, deceased

and the MPAA Appeals Board members are:

• Matt Brandt, President, Trans-Lux Theatres
• Pete Cole, Film Buyer, The Movie Experience
• Bruce Corwin, Chairman & CEO, Metropolitan Theatres
• Alan Davy, Film Buyer, Regal Entertainment
• Mike Doban, President, Archangelo Entertainment
• Steve Gilula, CEO Fox Searchlight Pictures
• Frank Haffar, COO, Maya Cinemas
• John Lodigian, Vice President of Sales, Sony Pictures
• Michael McClellan, Vice President & Film Buyer, Landmark Theatres
• Milton Moritz, CA/NV Chapter President, National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO)
• Lew Westenberg, VP of Operations West Coast Division, Loews Cineplex Theatres
• Jonathan Wolf, Director, American Film Market
• Reverend James Wall, United Methodist Minister, National Council of Churches
• Harry Forbes, Representative, United States Council of Catholic Bishops

Legally, the rating system is entirely voluntary. However, signatory members of the MPAA (major studios) have agreed to submit all of their theatrical releases for rating, and few mainstream producers are willing to bypass the rating system due to potential effects on revenues. Most films released unrated nowadays are either relatively obscure independent films, pornographic films, foreign films, direct-to-video films, made-for-TV films, documentaries not expected to play outside the arthouse market, or large format (IMAX) films, which typically contain minimal offensive content and generally receive a G or PG rating when they are submitted for a rating.

PG ratings have been associated with children's films, and are widely considered to be commercially bad for films targeted at teenagers and adults. For example, the 2004 action/adventure film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which was not targeted at children, received a PG rating, which some believe caused it to underperform at the box office as preteens and teenagers—both huge movie-going demographics—may have brushed it off as a "kiddie flick".^[15] On the other hand, according to Michael Medved's logic, the R rating also hurts box office performance, due to common social and cultural controversies. In 2001, in response to the poorer performance of R rated material, the film industry began to shift focus toward PG-13-rated films.^[16] None of the X or NC-17 films have been a commercially successful, even Showgirls which was a widespread release in 1995.^[17]

While some may debate the degree to which any such things are truly unintended, since the ratings now have a clearly established use as part of the marketing strategy for a film, the whole question of children tending to scorn "tame" G or PG fare in favor of whatever they can get away with seeing is a legitimate criticism of an age based rating system. Some R fare is not aimed at older adults, but at a high school and college age market eager to engage in what they perceive as mature activities. Thus, the pretense that offensive content can be considered "adult" serves as a misleading marketing strategy to attract a youthful audience, often for purely sensational or provocative content for its own sake.

The minimum age for unaccompanied patrons at R films, and all patrons at X films, was originally set at 16. By 1970 it was raised to 17 (in some areas the age may be higher still—often 18—and in rare cases as high as 21). Theater owners could still allow anyone into R-rated films without being accompanied by an adult since the rating system is technically voluntary and does not have the force of law behind it. Attendance at films with strong enough content to merit an NC-17 rating could be restricted by law due to the possibility of being considered indecent.

In the 1970s the East Coast based Century theater chain used its own rating system, with only three categories instead of four: For All Ages, For Mature Audiences, and No One Under 17 Admitted, with most, but not all, R-rated films receiving the middle designation, under which no age limits were enforced. In 2000, due to issues raised by Senator Joseph Lieberman, the National Association of Theater Owners, the major trade association in the U.S., announced it would start strict enforcement of ID checks for R- and NC-17-rated movies.

Many retailers of videos, especially Wal-Mart, tend to prohibit the sale of R-rated movies to minors. POS systems are set up to prevent a transaction without a sales associate checking an ID.

The 2001 independent film L.I.E. challenged its NC-17 rating and waged a publicity campaign against the arbitrary nature of the ratings system. Lot 47, the film's distributor, lost its appeal, and released the film unrated. With the recent success of another NC-17 film, The Dreamers, some film producers and directors hope that the rating may begin to lose some of its stigma and more movie theaters will consider playing such films. The Dreamers also had an R-rated version released on DVD and VHS. NC-17 films often have R versions when released on DVD. Earlier, the NC-17-rated Kids waged a similar campaign, part of which included exhibiting the film to persons under 18 and publishing their (generally favorable) reactions to it. Another film to successfully challenge its NC-17 rating was the cult classic 1994 comedy Clerks., which eventually garnered an R rating. Director Kevin Smith announced he was prepared to release the sequel, Clerks 2, without a rating, but was surprised and relieved when the MPAA passed it uncut with an R-rating. Gunner Palace appealed to the MPAA and overthrew its R-rating in favour of a PG-13 rating, even though it contains 42 instances of the word fuck, some used sexually.

Earlier in the rating system, African-Americans complained that rating criteria were too heavily biased against inner city conditions and dialects. For his 1971 film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, director Melvin Van Peebles came up with a winning ad slogan ("Rated X by an All-White Jury") that proved successful with the urban market. The revision of the ages upward corresponded with a slackening of standards that generally allowed most such product to receive an R rating thereafter.

Since the rapid expansion of the home video market in the late 1990s, studios have been known to skirt the rating system and release unrated versions of films on videocassette and DVD. Sometimes these versions would have earned an NC-17 if submitted for rating, but often their unrated status is merely for marketing purposes. Films that have been rated PG-13 in their theatrical run are sometimes extended with footage equivalent to an R (but not NC-17) rating and marketed as "unrated" with the implication that the added unrated material is racier than an R rating would permit. For example, one DVD release of American Pie, rated R in its theatrical release, exclaims on the box, "UNRATED! The Version You Couldn't See In Theaters". Sometimes the difference between an R-rated feature and its unrated home video counterpart is as little as a few seconds, while other unrated video editions add scenes that have no sexual or violent content whatsoever, making them "unrated" in the technical sense even though they don't contain more provocative material than the theatrical version (one example of this would be Unleashed). A number of filmmakers have also taken to filming additional footage specifically for video or DVD release, with no intention of submitting this material to the MPAA.

Some foreign and independent films do not bother to submit to the rating system, reasoning that they will not be distributed widely beyond their arthouse audience, so the expense is unnecessary.

Starting in 2004, GKC Theatres (now Carmike) had 'R-Cards' that let teens see R-rated films without adult accompaniment. The cards generated a lot of controversy, and Jack Valenti of the MPAA said in a news article: "I think it distorts and ruptures the intent of this voluntary film ratings system. All R-rated films are not alike." ^[18] The president of the National Association of Theatre Owners, John Fithian, also says that the cards can be harmful. He noted in a news article for the Christian Science Monitor that the R rating is "broad enough to include relatively family-friendly fare such as Billy Elliot and Erin Brockovich (both rated R for language) along with movies that push the extremes of violence, including Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill." ^[19]

The movie rating system has had a number of high profile critics. Film critic Roger Ebert argues that the system places too much emphasis on not showing sex while allowing the portrayal of massive amounts of gruesome violence. The uneven emphasis on sex versus violence is echoed by other critics, including David Ansen, as well as many filmmakers. Moreover, Ebert argues that the rating system is geared toward looking at trivial aspects of the movie (such as the number of times a profane word is used) rather than at the general theme of the movie (for example, if the movie realistically depicts the consequences of sex and violence). He has called for an A (adults only) rating, to indicate films high in violence or mature content that should not be marketed to teenagers, but do not have NC-17 levels of sex. He has also called for the NC-17 rating to be removed and have the X-rating revived. He felt that everyone understood what X-rated means while fewer people understood what NC-17 meant. He called for rating A and X to identify whether an adult film is pornographic or not. Roger Ebert came up with this idea when he felt that The Passion of the Christ did not get the NC-17 rating it deserved. According to Commonsense Media, a media review site, the MPAA is now using smoking as a reason for a film rating.

Perhaps with these objections in mind, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office for Film and Broadcasting (a descendant of the formerly influential National Legion of Decency) maintains its own film classification system, which takes the overall "moral tone" of a film into account, rather than focusing on content alone.

Many critics of the MPAA system, especially independent distributors, have charged that major studios' releases often receive more lenient treatment than independent films. They allege that Saving Private Ryan, with its intense depiction of the D-Day invasion of Normandy, would have earned an NC-17 if it were not a Steven Spielberg film. The comedy Scary Movie, released by a division of The Walt Disney Company's Miramax Films, contained "strong crude sexual humor, language, drug use and violence" but was rated R, to the surprise of many reviewers and audiences; by comparison, the comparatively tame porn spoof Orgazmo, an independent release, contained "explicit sexual content and dialogue" and received an NC-17. On the other hand, the studio distributed film The Passion of the Christ received an R rating despite graphic depictions of violence.

Before Miramax Films was purchased by The Walt Disney Company, Miramax founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein often clashed with the MPAA, proclaimed the rating system unfair to independents, and released some films unrated to avoid an X or NC-17. Orgazmo director Trey Parker's ratings battles later inspired the (R-rated) film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, which directly criticized the MPAA and holds the Guinness world record for most profanity and violence in an animated feature (399 profane words, 128 offensive gestures and 221 acts of violence).

Another criticism of the ratings system is the apparent arbitrary nature in designating PG-13- and R-rated content. Many critics (professional, the general public and religious and moral groups) believe that the content of recent PG-13 films equals that of R-rated films from the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. For example, depictions of sexual content, violence, profanity and other objectionable content in a PG-13 film from the late 1990s on may have been considered "R level" in the 1970s and 1980s. A Harvard study suggested that the rating system has allowed far more violence, sex, profanity, drug use and other mature content in 2003 than they have allowed in 1992 in PG and PG-13 rated movies.^[20] That study found this when they noticed that an R-rated movie released in 1992 had the exact same content levels as a PG-13 rated film released in 2003.

Many critics of the system, both conservative and liberal, would like to see the MPAA ratings unveiled and the standards made public. The MPAA has consistently cited Nationwide scientific polls, (conducted each year by the Opinion Research Corporation of Princeton, New Jersey) which show that parents find the ratings useful. Nevertheless, critics respond this proves only that parents find the ratings more useful than nothing at all.

An internal critic of the early workings of the ratings system is film critic and writer Stephen Farber, who was a CARA intern for six months in the its early years, 1969–1970. In The Movie Ratings Game (Public Affairs Press)^[21], he documents how, since its early days, the board has used the same censorship tactics it uses today: threatening an X rating to force a film maker to delete content offensive to the personal sensibilities of the board's members; the lopsided prejudice against sex relative in favour of violence; and using of psychological jargon to justify restricting films because of their themes rather than their images, even when inexplicit; for example, the anti-war movie The Revolutionary first was rated PG, but later was re-rated R because it is anti-war.

Farber documents that the ratings board used its power to punish the most creative film makers such as Stanley Kubrick and John Schlesinger – A Clockwork Orange, Midnight Cowboy – while rewarding conservative, uncontroversial film makers and films with open-ended ratings; the hypocrisy about "protecting" in light of the fact that most of the severities imposed on certain films is borne less for impact on children than on parents' reactions; annoyance at the board's rating the Woodstock (1970)film with an R, given that the festival, itself, had no age restrictions, which arguably is less traumatic an experience than was the festival.

Another, current problem is the freely-wielded threat of a restrictive rating to force studios to tone down submitted films; he cites movies that were re-cut not only to be removed from the X category (sometimes as many as two brackets, to PG), but for re-rating from R to PG, and from PG to G. This censorship extends to screenplays submitted for analysis to determine a projected rating; the example is The Panic in Needle Park (1971), the script was rated X because of its vulgar, street junkie dialogue, cursing, and many references to using heroin; it was released with an R rating.

Farber recommends that the X rating either be abolished or re-labelled to A or AO, but recommends its abolition, arguing that an R rating ought be an enlightened society's most restrictive film rating. He concludes The Movie Ratings Game by endorsing public pressure and economic activism as the best means of reform, because: "The rating system is certainly not going to be reformed from within".

• British Board of Film Classification, the UK equivalent
• Office of Film and Literature Classification, the Australian equivalent
• Office of Film and Literature Classification, the New Zealand equivalent
• Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle der Filmwirtschaft, the German equivalent
• Canadian motion picture rating system, the Canadian equivalent (although ratings vary between provinces)
• Censorship
• ChildCare Action Project A Christian alternative to MPAA ratings.
• Edited movie
• Entertainment Software Rating Board
• Film Advisory Board, which offers the only "official" alternative to the MPAA ratings system
• List of NC-17 rated films
• Motion picture rating system
• Marvel Rating System, with which the MPAA had a brief dispute
• Parental guidance
• Jack Valenti Head of Motion Picture Lobby in Washington who devised the idea.
• Richard Heffner longtime head of the MPAA ratings board
• Production Code
• Screen it! A parent-geared website that describes content of movies.
• Strong language
• Television rating system
• United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office for Film and Broadcasting
• This Film Is Not Yet Rated, a 2006 film investigating the MPAA rating system
• X-rated

• MPAA Film Ratings website
• How the MPAA rating works
• Searchable Ratings Database